With the heathens

This book provides us with an exciting insight into the literary development of one of the leading Colombian authors from 1959 to the present, as well as into the evolution of Medellín from an emerging industrial metropolis, where remnants of its small-town past are still alive, to a modern city dominated by drug trafficking and criminal gangs. It is a journey into hell that the author depicts with expertise and empathy. In Colombia, there is no other storyteller like Darío Ruiz Gómez who can immerse himself in the souls of his characters, regardless of the social class from which the protagonists of the stories originate. Thus, we follow through the eyes of a mother, who is left behind by modern development, as her growing daughter becomes increasingly foreign to her; we accompany a young woman from the countryside, whose entire...